Speciation of heavy metals in sediments of the lagoon of Venice collected in the industrial area

In this study a procedure of sequential extraction of metals from sediments was applied to samples from the lagoon of Venice. Compared to the measurement of total concentrations, the knowledge of metal partitioning among sediment phases can help in estimating the risk posed by metal polluted sediments and give information on contamination sources and on the factors that influence metal enrichment in sediments. The results permitted to estimate for each metal the percentage of the total content that could be potentially remobilized from sediments, owing to changes in environmental conditions. The immediately available fraction represented in general a low proportion of the total content. An important proportion of most metals (except for Zn, Cd and Cu) was associated to residual phases and therefore was not expected to be released under the normal environmental conditions. The large amounts of metals bound to Fe-Mn oxides/hydroxides confirmed the strong scavenging efficiency of this phase. The carbonate phase was the preferential associative form for Pb, Cd and Zn, whereas Cu was bound in prevalence to the organic matter/sulphide phase.